"Why?" asked Miss Apperthwaite.

"It seems too big for one man," I answered; "and I've always had the
impression Mr. Beasley was a bachelor."

"Yes," she said, rather slowly, "he is."

"But of course he doesn't live there all alone," I supposed, aloud,
"probably he has--"

"No. There's no one else--except a couple of colored servants."

"What a crime!" I exclaimed. "If there ever was a house meant for a
large family, that one is. Can't you almost hear it crying out for heaps
and heaps of romping children? I should think--"

I was interrupted by a loud cough from Mr. Dowden, so abrupt and
artificial that his intention to check the flow of my innocent prattle
was embarrassingly obvious--even to me!

"Can you tell me," he said, leaning forward and following up the
interruption as hastily as possible, "what the farmers were getting for
their wheat when you left Spencerville?"

"Ninety-four cents," I answered, and felt my ears growing red with
mortification. Too late, I remembered that the new-comer in a community
should guard his tongue among the natives until he has unravelled the
skein of their relationships, alliances, feuds, and private wars--a
precept not unlike the classic injunction: